GMG chief exec McCall is leaving (on an easyJet plane)
Carolyn McCall, chief executive of Guardian Media Group (GMG) is set to leave the company after 24 years to take up the role of chief executive of easyJet.
McCall will depart later this year, having acted as chief executive at GMG for the last four years.
The company has said that plans for her succession will be made ‘in due course’.
McCall joined The Guardian in 1986 as a planner in the marketing department before going on to hold the positions of advertising director, commercial director, managing director and chief executive at Guardian News & Media.
She was promoted to chief executive of the company’s parent organisation GMG in 2006 and two years later was awarded an OBE for services to women in business.
In those 24 years, McCall oversaw the launch of the Guardian’s website – originally named Guardian Unlimited, the move for the Guardian and Observer to the Berliner format, the relocation to new premises at Kings Place in North London and the diversification of GMG’s portfolio, which include the partial sale of Auto Trade, publisher of Trade Media Group.
Most recently, McCall oversaw the sale of the sale of its regional media business, including the Manchester Evening News, to Trinity Mirror, in a deal worth £44.8m.
Last week, it was announced that GMG was to cut the number of staff at Channel M, its Manchester-based TV station, to just four, having not found a buyer for the ailing channel.